Happy Till The End
by Destiny JoRayne Adams
Summary: Written for a self Prompt Word List.  Word is date. - Mike doesn't even know why he's here. NOT slash. AU.


He didn't come here often. In fact, he wasn't quite sure why he was there now.

He walked through the cemetery gates and made his way through the hundreds of headstones, weary mourners and freshly mowed grass. The graves were further back from the entrance, away from practically everything actually. He had nothing to do with the planning of the funeral or the burial; some wealthy uncle he had never met had paid for the plots probably out of some sense of misplaced duty.

Mike would like to think that he was one to look toward the future. That he was one not to dwell on the past, but to learn from it and move on. His grandmother told him that he was the exact opposite; that all he did was live in the past, trying to repair mistakes that couldn't be fixed.

The graves looked the exact same as the last time he was here. Someone else had been there and had left flowers that were now dead. Mike didn't know who had thought to do that and really didn't care. He really shouldn't be here.

It wasn't that he didn't love his parents. He did and he missed them desperately at times. But like they said, the funeral and graveside service wasn't for the deceased; it was for the loved ones that were left behind. The same concept went for the actual graves as far as Mike was concerned and he didn't need them. They weren't going to bring him closure and he sure as heck didn't need the memories that they uncovered.

He didn't know why he was here.

He laid the artificial flowers he had grabbed at a cheap flower shop as an afterthought. It was strange; but he didn't feel right coming to the graves empty handed. As he brought his hand back up, he let his fingers trace the letters carved into the hard stone.

_Luke and Emily Ross_

_July 23 2001_

_Happy Till the End_

And they had been happy until the end.

"_Mommy, why don't Mandy's mommy and daddy live together?" Mike plopped his backpack on the table and watched as his mother sat on the couch and held out her arms. He crawled into her lap and knew that there was nowhere that he felt safer. But his mind was still on the conversation he had had at school with one of his classmates. "Mandy says that her mommy and daddy didn't live together and that she lives with her mommy sometimes and then she lives with her daddy sometimes. Why would they do that?"_

"_Well…" Emily trailed off and tried to think of a way to explain divorce to a six year old. "Sometimes when people get married, they think they love each other. But later they find out that they really didn't love each other after all, and so they decide not to live together anymore."_

_Mike thought about that for a moment. "But you love Daddy, right?"_

_Emily hugged Mike closer to her body. "Yes, Mikey, I love your daddy very much."_

"_And Daddy loves you very much?" _

"_And Daddy loves me very much, too." _

_Mike pushed away from her and looked her straight in the eye. "Are you sure, Mommy?" _

"_Yes, Mikey, I'm sure." _

_Mike snuggled closer to his mother's warm body. "Good. I want you and Daddy to love each other very much." _

"Mike?"

Mike spun around, startled. Harvey stood behind him, still dressed from the office. He looked vaguely uncomfortable.

"What are you doing here, Harvey?"

Harvey didn't answer the question. Instead he gestured to the headstone, "Your parents?"

"What about it?" Mike knew he sounded like a belligerent teenager, but at the moment he didn't care. He was caught between anger at the fact that Harvey had obviously followed him and embarrassment at being caught in his emotional vulnerability.

"Today marks the tenth anniversary of your parents' death."

Mike didn't deny it or ask how Harvey knew. Harvey probably knew way more about him then Mike was comfortable with, but it wasn't like there was much he could do about it know.

Awkward silence reigned; Mike keeping his gaze on the headstone and Harvey looking everywhere but at Mike.

Finally Harvey cleared his throat. "You want to go for a drink?"

Mike's first impulse was to say no. What he wanted was to bury himself in some kind of work so he could forget everything. Or call Trevor, because for all his best friend's faults, he had always been there when he needed him as he was growing up. But Trevor was somewhere in Montana with no way to be contacted and though he could dig up some work to do if he wanted, he suddenly felt way too tired. What the heck, alcohol was good enough to drown his thoughts out.

"If you're buying," He hadn't been drinking with Harvey, but it couldn't be worse than spending all day with him at the Firm.

-000-

Turned out Harvey wasn't so bad to drink with after all. And why did it seem that the room was spinning? Mike raised his hand to signal the bartender for another shot; might as well take advantage of the fact that Harvey was paying.

Their conversation so far had been just shooting the breeze, covering all sorts of topics that were completely unimportant. Harvey had yet to bring up work, which had confused Mike at first; why else would Harvey ask him for drinks? But after a while, the buzz in his end drowned out all the questions, but not the memories as he had originally hoped.

"They were the best." He vaguely recognized that his words were slurred and somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if they even made sense at all.

Harvey's attention turned to focus on him. "Who were the best, Mike?"

"M' Mom's and Dad's. They loved each other." Harvey was nodding and he looked like he was paying attention. Of course, Harvey also looked like a nice guy, and Mike knew better. Of course, he honestly was a nice guy, though he could be a bit a jerk sometimes. He just wouldn't admit it to himself, to anybody, actually. Why was he thinking about this anyway? It didn't matter if Harvey wouldn't admit it to himself.

"Admit what to myself?" Harvey took another sip from his glass.

Mike hadn't realized that he had said that out loud, then again, he couldn't really tell what were thoughts and what wasn't. Everything was so disjointed. "Admit you care, 'cause you pretend you're a jerk, but you're really not." His thoughts were really getting more mixed up, or maybe those were his words. But he wasn't feeling as much anymore. He wasn't feeling anything about what the date happened to signify. Date… "You should go on a date, Harvey. M'be that would lighten you up a lil' bit, 'cause you really aren't a jerk."

Harvey started to rise but Mike tugged at his sleeve. "Where are you goin', Harvey? To go get a date, 'cause there was this girl…" Mike spun around and somehow ended up heading for the floor. Hands caught him at the last moment.

"I think it's time to get you home, Mikey."

"Mom always used to call me that." He dimly felt the wetness slipping down his cheeks. "Mom always used to call me Mikey."

He felt himself being propelled along and put gently in the back of a car. The tears were still sliding down his face because even though he knew he was drunker than anything, he still hurt and man, he still missed them like it happened yesterday. "She used to call me Mikey," and then he saw black.

-000-

Whatever happened yesterday couldn't have been worth this agony.

The alarm clock sounded ten times louder than it normally did and Mike fumbled for the off button. Finally locating it, he sighed in relief as the noise stopped. Unfortunately, the herd of elephants in his head didn't.

He barely made it to the bathroom before his stomach decided to move to the outside of his body. He seemed to be retching for hours, and when he finally stopped he leaned his head again the toilet seat weakly. Never again, would he drink alcohol, because nothing was ever worth this. Ever.

He finally managed to pry himself away from the toilet to grab some water to wash the disgusting aftertaste from his mouth. He longed to just curl up and go back to sleep, but Harvey had obviously been the one to get him on his couch the night before and it wouldn't be good to repay him by showing up late for work when he was counting on him.

By the time he got out of the shower and brushed his teeth he felt halfway human again. He ran a comb through his hair and tried to avoid looking at his reflection in the mirror, it didn't look pretty.

His phone was ringing as he walked out of the bathroom and he knew it was Harvey. He picked it up as he walked to the kitchen.

"Hey." His stomach revolted at the thought of food, but he knew he needed the nourishment. He settled on a banana, yogurt – strawberry, the only kind he would even look at – and milk.

"So you're up and up 'em, huh?" Harvey's voice sounded dry and amused.

Mike groaned. "Why didn't you just kill me last night?" He remembered snippets of what happened and he was so tired and miserable, he would have felt embarrassed.

"What kind of fun would that have been?" Than Harvey's voice turned serious. "Jessica gave me a case this morning and I need the nifty memory of yours, so make sure you get here at a decent hour, will you?" And with that, the line went dead.

"Yes sir," Mike muttered sarcastically. It was going to be a long day.

-000-

It was well past lunchtime before Mike stepped into Harvey's office. He was feeling better, though he knew his appearance was still off if the looks and smart remarks he'd been getting all morning were anything to go by.

He dropped a list of files on Harvey's desk. "Here's all the information I found on the Peterson brothers. And get this, they're not as innocent as they seem. Three years ago, their father was killed in a car accident. Police were suspicious of foul play, but couldn't prove it. With their dad taken care of, they inherited millions."

Harvey didn't look up. "Good, you found an angle I can use again them. I left a stack of files on your desk that need to be filed into the system. I want it done by the end of the day."

Mike nodded, but hesitated before heading to the door. "Hey, uh, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for last night, I have no idea –"

Harvey held up a hand to stop him. "You were drunk, people do and say stupid things when their drunk. Those files aren't going to take care of themselves, so get out of here."

Mike nodded, "Right." He reached the door, than turned around again. "You know you did prove one thing yesterday, right?"

Harvey sighed and once again turned his attention back to Mike. "What are you talking about?"

"You proved that you do, in fact, care about me. Because if you hadn't, you never would have gotten me home, you would have left me in the stupid bar."

Harvey stood and came around the desk. "I got you back to your home because _I_ needed your help in this morning to help with _my_ case because that's _my_ job. It had nothing to do with me caring about you."

Mike grinned. "Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that." He opened the door, but it was Harvey who stopped him this time. "Hey, I am sorry about your parents though. It's hard to go through that."

Mike gave a small smile. "It was a long time ago. I'll live."

Harvey nodded and shuffled back behind his desk. "Get to those files, Mike."

Mike saluted smartly. "Yes sir!" He sent a quick smile at Harvey and then headed for his desk.

_That idiot, _but even Harvey had admit that they thought was twinge with affection. His decision to hire Mike had been a good one that he wouldn't be regretting anytime soon.

_-2,083_


End file.
